In Which I Am an Upstanding Knitter

So the other day I was home sick and decided to tackle a knitting project I’ve had my eye on since my sister announced her pregnancy last fall, thus kicking off OMG BABIES EVERYWHERE 2010. (Seriously, babies everywhere you guys.) With plenty of time on my hands and a backlog of Gossip Girl, I whipped through the hat in a couple of hours, putting the finishing touches on it at knitting group the next day.

This got me to thinking: maybe I should make a few of these hats and put them in my Etsy store, which has sat empty since the holidays! Which then led me to wonder whether or not I could legally sell a hat made from someone else’s pattern.

So I contacted the pattern designer. I explained the modifications I had made to her pattern, and asked whether the licensing on her pattern would allow me to sell projects that I made with it. She replied that while she had no problem with me selling hats I made with her pattern, the modifications I made essentially reverted the pattern back to the one she had modified originally.

So I tracked down the creator of the original pattern, and was along the way pointed to a great resource explaining copyright issues related to crafting in general, and knitting in particular. I explained the process by which I’d made the hat to the original pattern creator, and was told that while I couldn’t sell projects made directly from the pattern (or others in the book, I assume), I was welcome to make my own modifications and then sell the resulting projects.

So while I’m disappointed that I can’t list the adorable hat that I made the other night, I do feel like an upstanding citizen and responsible crafter.